by Dugan Mcshain

Created on: November 22, 2004   Last Updated: March 11, 2011

Hubs are connect Ethernet lines together. Your computer ethernet line is the high speed internet and information cord; a hub is just a way to connect these lines. With a hub, you just connect each computer to the hub, and the hub relays traffic among all the connected machines.

A hub connects computers, but doesn't recognize or know what any of the information that travels along its pathways are! It just relays the data, whatever it is. A router, on the other hand, knows about types of traffic and destinations. A router has at least two network connections: one to the local network and one to a remote network. The purpose of the router is to decide which information will pass to either network or route certain kinds of data between the two. It keeps local info local like; printer ques, servre questions and local networking data. That keeps unnecessary traffic off the network, improving the performance for the traffic that does belong there. It also provides some security: traffic between local machines is not visible on the other side of the router.

Since the router makes the connection to your ISP, it needs to know things like phone numbers to dial, accounts and passwords and such. Most of the difficulty in setting up a router is getting this stuff in correctly.

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